


Dead Again

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Category: Saiyuki (Anime & Manga), Saiyuki Gaiden
Genre: Archival Fic, Don't copy to another site, Multi, Reincarnation, Rule 63, Sometimes You're Just Going to Get Reborn a Different Gender, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25213261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: It's what happens after you die that matters. No, really.
Relationships: Cho Hakkai/Genzo Sanzo (brief), Cho Hakkai/Sha Gojyo, Genjo Sanzo/Sha Gojyo (brief), Genjo Sanzo/Son Goku
Comments: 19
Kudos: 74





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Back to working on moving stuff over from the spambot...this one's from 2005

Ice-cold floors could be a blessing on the morning after, though the fact that they tended to be hard as rock didn't always jibe well with the hangover. In order for a floor to be ice-cold, it generally had to _be_ rock, the more expensive the better, unless packed-earth floors in the dead of winter were your thing.

They weren't _his_ , that was for certain, so when he opened his eyes to a field of white, he merely squinted until he could make out the grain of the marble. It was a very nice grade, to his connoisseur's eye: milky with veins of cloudy grey, polished to a fine sheen. The patch of it under his cheek felt smooth as glass, and he sighed extravagantly as he moved his head _just_ enough to find a cooler patch without setting his temples throbbing.

Oddly enough, his head didn't protest at all. Come to think of it, his eyes weren't the least bit scratchy, and the inside of his mouth tasted distinctly unmidden-like, and his stomach was neither clamoring for breakfast nor bitching at him over 'dinner.' He wasn't quite sure what to make of all this, because while lying around on marble floors when he was dead drunk was one thing, lying around on marble floors when he was stone sober was another.

He sat up and realized at a glance that he'd probably just made his first mistake.

The floor he'd been lying on was definitely marble, but it definitely wasn't anywhere in the Emperor's palace--not even in the women's quarters, because he'd already had the grand tour. There was a good possibility that he'd been drugged and carted off somewhere, but while he could think of a great many people who'd love to do just that--jealous husbands and angry brothers aside, no one knew more about the inner secrets of the Emperor's court than he did--he couldn't think of a single place where they might have carted him off _to_ that looked like this.

It would have passed for an audience chamber, except that there was a lily pond in the center of it. Still, he was pretty attached to the 'audience chamber' idea, because there was a rather nice throne lurking just across the pool from him. On the other hand, the room itself didn't appear to have any doors, and in his wide and varied experience, that was never a good sign. Not to mention the fact that while he wasn't alone, his two companions weren't in any better shape than he was.

The one closest to him groaned quietly as if waking from a sound sleep, and a pair of startlingly green eyes opened to peer wonderingly up at him. He knew he was staring, but he couldn't help it--one part of him was insisting that he'd never seen eyes like that in his life, but there was another voice, quiet but getting louder, that said he knew those eyes, knew them better than his own. Green-Eyes pushed himself upright as slowly as he had himself only moments before, looked around with just as much confusion, and then turned back to him with a puzzled stare.

"Do you--?" Green-Eyes began.

A few feet away, the other stranger twitched as if stung, sitting bolt upright with an irritated groan. Something white detached itself from the man's chest as he sat up and fell into his lap, making the same disgusted sound until its ruffled fur was smoothed by an absent hand. The other hand lifted to shove back a long mane of hair the color of sunlight from a face that could have launched a thousand poems but for the daunting frown.

"I don't know whose idea of a joke this is," the third man muttered, only to snap his mouth shut with a suspicious scowl at his surroundings. "Where the hell is this?"

He couldn't help it. Staring at his two companions--Green-Eyes and the bitchy knockout--he started laughing and had to lean back against the edge of the ornamental pool to keep from falling over again. "Wonderful...kidnapped, and not even a pretty girl to keep me company."

Green-Eyes' best features opened wide in startlement. " _Kenren_?"

It was like being hung from his heels as the clapper of a god-sized bronze bell. His head rang and echoed as older memories rushed in and drummed around inside, shaking the newer recollections of a mortal life from their foundations. He remembered his _name_ , and Tenpou, and dear gods, was that _Konzen_? In the robes and ribbons of a scholar, no less--a very high-ranking scholar at that, thank you very much. The more things changed....

Memory wasn't quite done with him, though, and gave him a final kick that dropped everything back into place, including the one thing he'd apparently been trying to forget.

"Oh shit," he breathed, hands scrabbling for the edge of the pool to brace himself against the shock of realization. "Didn't we _die_?"

"Recently?" Konzen drawled, and though his voice seemed even sharper than Kenren remembered it, he chose to let that pass.

"No, I mean before! We were...and the Armies of Heaven...and...."

"Yes," Tenpou agreed slowly, "we certainly did die...but we seem to have been allowed to reincarnate after all."

That thought rattled around in the quiet for a long moment as awareness set in. On the one hand, it was nice to know that they hadn't been completely wiped out of existence. On the other hand, it was something of a shock to wake up and remember that the godly life you'd forgotten wasn't yours anymore. The three of them stared at each other bleakly as the silence stretched, but no one seemed to know what to say.

Eventually Konzen's cat picked itself up from his lap and stretched luxuriously before sauntering over to explore the lily pond. There were probably fish to be had, and not being hungry meant nothing to a cat when there were small moving targets at stake.

"Goku," Konzen said abruptly, looking around as if expecting the kid to appear in answer to his name. "If we're here, where's Goku?"

Kenren almost grinned seeing Konzen's determinedly not-worried expression--as if he were fooling anybody. "Dunno," he said. "I just got here myself."

Which made him stop, frowning, to mull that over. _Had_ he just gotten here? And what were the chances--

"How likely is it," Tenpou asked suddenly, echoing his thought, "that we all died at exactly the same time?"

"Oh," Konzen said flatly, eyes flicking to the pond where his cat was happily engaged in reeling in a fat carp hooked by sharp claws. "Now I remember. This is one of the places _se_ watches the world from. We're between lives," he added when Kenren gave him a doubtful look. "We were probably gathered here to wait...."

"Until we were all together?" Tenpou hazarded.

Konzen shrugged, the old irritation back in his eyes--but fiercer, more immediate, than Kenren could remember ever seeing it before. Something about human life seemed to have brought Konzen's emotions closer to the surface--and it was about damn time, as far as Kenren was concerned. Maybe humanity was going to be good for Konzen.

"Hey, maybe that's Goku?" Kenren asked, cocking his thumb at the cat that was--eww--feasting on the Holy Ornamental Fish of the Gods. "The brat always did think with his stomach."

"No," Konzen said, with no room for argument in his tone. "That's not Goku. I'd know if it was."

Kenren couldn't think of a way to refute that, but before he could put any real effort into it, he heard a light, sweet chime, like the jingle of delicate bracelets on the ankles of a dancer, and the far-off hiss of water, or rushing wind, like the sound a spirit makes as it falls from Heaven towards the flesh.

***

The next time Tenpou woke up on a white marble floor, it only took one glance at Kenren's blissfully sleeping face to remember who and where he was. There was no real confusion, despite the addition of decades of new memories, which was interesting in and of itself. Perhaps he was getting better at dying. Perhaps it was the memories themselves, which seemed almost a natural flow from his old life as a god and the first mortal life that had come after. The time before, he'd been a tactician, winning battles for his lord from behind a map table. This time he'd taken a more personal hand, tidying the conflicts of princes by taking out generals and statesmen alone, often in their sleep.

"Interesting," he said, wondering if he should be embarrassed or gratified to know that he could excel at anything he chose to do, even assassination. He'd always thought that there was something deeply attractive about a capable person, but he wondered if he wasn't taking it a bit too far.

Kenren dozed on, still smiling in his sleep, and Tenpou seized the opportunity to examine his friend without distractions while he could. Did Kenren look...different, somehow? He thought yes--the man's hair was longer, for one thing--though the essential shape of his face remained the same. Perhaps gods reincarnated differently. He'd certainly heard enough whispers about the color of his own eyes during his mortal lives, though that was natural, considering the countries he'd been reborn in. He wondered briefly how Konzen managed with his brazenly unique looks and felt the first stirrings of alarm. Konzen was used to being the center of attention, but Konzen was also used to being untouchable.

_Oh, dear_.

Well. Konzen could probably take care of himself. Memories might get left by the wayside when they were returned to the Wheel, but the spirit itself, he thought, remained the same. Konzen had been born with the ability to silence with a look, and the knack probably followed him from life to life. In the meantime....

It wasn't the physical differences that made Tenpou stare so determinedly at Kenren's face, trying to put his finger on what had changed. Other than the man's clothes, that was, which was something of a relief, because he'd been hard pressed last time not to laugh at the spectacle of Kenren Taisho tricked out like a court dandy. An unlooked-for thought slithered quietly through his head-- _At least Kenren finally got the harem he always wanted_ \--and stopped his rambling thoughts in their tracks.

Had they been _close_ to each other in that life and never known?

"Oh, gods, you again," Konzen muttered as he woke, but Tenpou didn't take it personally. That was just Konzen, who'd never been at his most pleasant first thing in the morning. He used to wonder what Konzen dreamed to make him so reluctant to leave the realm of sleep, though he'd been wise enough not to mention that puzzle to Kenren. The disasters you _could_ avert, you did.

"Welcome back, Konzen-sama," Tenpou offered cheerfully, ignoring the sour look Konzen shot him. The man might argue that he wasn't 'sama' anything anymore, but old habits died hard...like teasing Konzen in the gentlest way possible. Gently, yes, always gently, because Konzen was so isolated he didn't know, instinctively, the difference between teasing and mockery. And perhaps that isolation was Konzen's choice, but it had always been Tenpou's goal to draw the man out, however long it took.

"How long have you been awake?" Konzen asked, forgoing any greeting of his own.

"Not long. Kenren's still asleep, as you can see. Doesn't he look charming?" he couldn't resist adding, smiling at Konzen to invite him in on the joke. "Like he doesn't have a care in the world."

Konzen eyed the sleeping man as if waiting for him to explode or start speaking in tongues, violet eyes devouring Kenren's face with an intensity that surprised Tenpou. Konzen nearly always looked serious, but this...this was something different, with an edge sharper than the usual sneers Konzen used to keep everyone at a distance. "Maybe he doesn't," Konzen said abruptly, and Tenpou had to scramble to remember what he'd just said to make sense of Konzen's reply. "Maybe he's been dead the longest and doesn't have any cares at all. But wherever he is, it has to be better than _here_."

Tenpou was far too self-possessed to let his jaw gape open like a country bumpkin. Saying something so fundamentally true in an offhand tone of irritation--that was so _like_ Konzen. And, like always, the man had a point.

It wouldn't be fair to say that Kenren wasn't good at what he did, because he was--or could be, if the notion struck him and he didn't have anything better to do that day. Kenren had been made a soldier for his warlike spirit, which would have left him miserable at any other post. He'd been made a general because he had a knack for being in the right place at the right time and seeing it through to the end. He also had a talent for loyalty equaled by few even in Heaven, though he was highly particular about where he disposed that talent. While he could follow orders if they made sense, he was notorious for making up his own as the situation warranted, and as a warrior he was excellent, exactly the sort of man you could trust to have at your back.

All this would have been fine if not for the politics, the rigid hierarchy of Heaven and the interminable dance of politeness and betrayal. Oh, yes, they were all enlightened souls here, at least in comparison to the mortals stumbling through darkness in the world below. But it was power and the vagaries of karma that made some of them gods, only that; if the gods had truly found perfection, there would have been no need for armies. There wouldn't have been a Nataku--or, better yet, there wouldn't have been Nataku's father. Kenren had tried to do his best by Nataku once, and that was one of the things that had brought him, sleeping, to this place.

_Kenren's better off away from all that_. The thought was almost heretical, but having been a god himself, he felt more than qualified to make it. Kenren may have been made for conflict, but there was more to him than that. There was more to all of them than what'd they'd been allowed to be in Heaven, and only in the human world were they finding the freedom to discover who they were. It was a bittersweet revelation, because while it made him ache that it was so, it also made each human incarnation seem like less and less of a punishment.

Perhaps...he couldn't be sure, but just perhaps...was Kanzeon Bosatsu actually _rewarding_ them for their foolishness?

Kenren's long lashes flickered and rose, and for a moment, the almost childlike smile of contentment was still on his face as he looked up to meet Tenpou's eyes. "Hey," he said, his voice mellow with sleep, almost as if he thought he was waking up _to_ Tenpou, as if that were the most natural thing in the world. Perhaps it even ought to be...but before this idea could more than brush the surface of Tenpou's thoughts, Kenren's eyes went wide and startled as memory returned in a jolt. "Oh...hey. We're back here again."

"Yes," Tenpou said, clearing his throat, and watched as Kenren sat gingerly up. The immense white dog draped over Kenren's feet thumped its tail, jaw dropping open on a nearly-silent bark of welcome as Kenren reached out to ruffle its ears. "And this time it's you who brought a friend. How strange...."

Kenren frowned, but he kept scratching until he had the dog kicking one foot in the air in mindless canine bliss. "Yeah...what's up with that, anyway?"

"It's probably the same as what happened with the cat," Konzen said, his air of studied disinterest pricking Tenpou's curiosity. "If it belongs to you and it died with you, I assume it's going to get dragged along with you to this place."

"But twice in a row?" Kenren demanded, eyeing Konzen with alarm. "You're saying our pets are pretty much cursed, huh?"

"Idiot," Konzen muttered, but he didn't refute the accusation. He was too busy looking around the room, a flash of disquiet darkening his eyes before it was locked determinedly away.

While Konzen was distracted, Tenpou reached over and smacked the back of Kenren's head.

"Ow!" Kenren complained, which drew Konzen's gaze, but only for a moment. "What was that for?"

"I wouldn't mention pets if I were you," Tenpou murmured with a pleasant smile, speaking low enough that it shouldn't carry but ready with a mask in place should Konzen get suspicious of them whispering together. "Goku's still missing."

"Oh," Kenren said, and he was much less shy about showing his own worry than Konzen was. "Why?"

"How should I know?" Tenpou answered with a touch of asperity. "I just got here myself...remember?"

"Heh," Kenren said, looking around with a bit more interest. "So why here?" he asked, raising his voice so Konzen could hear. "Why us?"

"You mean 'why together'," Tenpou corrected, looking instinctively at Konzen for an answer. Of all of them, Konzen had been closest to Kanzeon Bosatsu, and who knew what offhand tidbits se might have let slip now and then? "Are we all being reborn at the same time, and if so...did we know each other when we were alive?"

"We might have," Konzen began with a distracted frown. They could all see how his mind sharpened to the task, his thoughts pulled away from the one who was missing to a problem he could actually solve. "But it'd be even more problematic if we did know each other."

"Why's that, O Wise One?" Kenren asked, his arm slung casually over his dog's shoulders.

Konzen's mouth tightened, but the look he gave Kenren was standard-issue, nothing worse than the 'don't play stupid; we all know you're only too lazy to think' that some people thought was Konzen's natural expression. "Because, idiot. If we're being reborn close enough to know each other, then that means there's something they want us to do. And I don't know about you two, but the idea of having some sort of divine mission right now really pisses me off."

Tenpou blinked, but the furious expression remained on Konzen's face--not just resentful of having his dogged serenity disturbed, or the sudden flashes of temper Goku could inspire by breathing, but a bright, glittering rage that smoldered just behind his eyes. He'd only seen Konzen this angry once before, and that was the day he'd died. The day they'd all died.

"Wow," Kenren said, his awed tone doing a poor job of masking the glee just beneath. "He even _looks_ pissed. Konzen-sama! C'mon, show us your lustful face next. Just _once _, pretty-please?"__

__"Die," Konzen growled, but Kenren just laughed._ _

__"Already ahead of you there...or--wait!--I'm _not_ , am I? Hey, won't it be romantic if we get to die together in the next life?"_ _

__Konzen's smile had ice in it, true, but also a touch of malicious humor. "Oh? You're planning on coming back as _my_ dog this time?"_ _

__Tenpou laughed quietly as Kenren sputtered, feeling like he'd come home--not to Heaven, but to _this_. "I believe he has you there--but if we _should_ meet, perhaps we'll remember next time we wake."_ _

__"Oh, hell, it's starting again. Come find me this time, gorgeous! I'll teach you a few new expressions!"_ _

__"Just remember that I'm partial to _lapdogs_ ," Konzen snapped, his voice fading out as the air around them dimmed to twilight. Or perhaps that was just their perception of things._ _

__Tenpou's last memory of Heaven was chuckling under his breath at his friends' antics and hoping that they would meet each other after all. Divine meddling aside, they were important to him, and he would miss them if they were gone...whether he remembered what it was he missed or not._ _

____

***

It was Konzen who woke first the next time, and he did what he always did when he first woke up: he looked to the left to see if the monkey was still safely asleep on the pallet beside his bed. But he wasn't in bed, which meant that Goku--who sometimes crawled in with him--could be anywhere, causing any sort of havoc, which Konzen would then be held responsible for.

All that passed through his head in an instant, and then he woke up a little more and realized that he was here again in the place between lives, and that things were different, and that Goku wasn't coming. Well, good. He didn't need that kind of mischief in his life, having someone always underfoot, asking stupid questions and invading his personal space at every opportunity. Goku's constant chatter gave him a headache, the 'why why whys' and the 'but Konnnnzens,' and the damned random _hugging_. You couldn't prepare for an attack like that, and he rarely had time to fend Goku off before he had the stupid monkey glued to him once again. Then he had to peel Goku off, one arm at a time, while ignoring the desperately happy grin he suspected he was supposed to be weak against.

Konzen Douji was not weak. He especially was not weak against children or fools, even if they were both and placed nominally in his care. He hadn't asked to be made Goku's guardian. He didn't want it, not when it meant this nagging feeling of responsibility, of something missing, this...this....

"I am _not_ worried," he muttered determinedly to himself and sat up.

The other two were there already, of course. Both were asleep, Kenren sprawled out in unconscious abandon, Tenpou curled up like a cat on his side. There was an unhooded white falcon mincing its way sideways up the rise of Tenpou's arm, but once it reached his shoulder, it merely leaned over to nibble his hair until he woke.

"Hnn," Tenpou mumbled around a yawn. "What a silly way to die."

Konzen's eyes narrowed as memory waved at him from behind the specter of the missing Goku...something about a quiet, peaceful life as a scribe in a lord's house, a lord with a taste for hunting...and an irritating soldier who'd shattered that peace by professing undying love for him at every opportunity. It had gotten to the point where he couldn't sleep when that idiot had the night watch, because the fool insisted on making _personally_ sure that his room was free of outlaws and molesters--and then he had all the work of kicking the man out again, which left him exhausted and irritated and _not_ curious, damn it. And his lord hadn't been any help at all, smiling and smiling and occasionally asking why he let it go on if he hated it that much. As if he had a _choice_.

Kenren woke up with a start, reaching for a sword that wasn't there with one hand and trying to pluck an imaginary arrow from his chest with the other. When he looked for Konzen and found him, his eyes lit up with predictably proprietary invitation and what might have been relief at finding Konzen safe if one didn't know him.

All those times that idiot had been 'looking' for outlaws and kidnappers, only to get himself and Tenpou shot full of arrows when a band finally appeared.

"Idiot," Konzen huffed, and Kenren grinned fit to crack his face open. Which would have been an improvement.

"Princess! You're alive!" Kenren cried out in overdone joy, clapping his hands rapturously together before his heart.

"Now, Kenren. Don't you think you've teased him enough?" Tenpou chided, dislodging the hunting bird from his shoulder so he could sit up properly.

"I hate you all," Konzen snarled viciously, folding his arms and ignoring them both.

Women had to have it easier than this. They usually had brothers for one thing, and when they used their knees, it was considered _sporting_. They were never confused by Kenren either, seeming to know instinctively what he wanted and how to handle him. Even if they happened to get swept off their feet, it was as much by their own choice as through Kenren's machinations.

Some called those machinations 'charm,' true, but Konzen wasn't one of them. Having been the target of that so-called charm, he'd become just human enough to wish he had the first clue how to turn the tables and to be frustrated that he didn't.

Women definitely had it easier. And where the _hell_ was Goku, anyway?

***

"Oh, man," Kenren groaned as he woke, shaking his head and sitting up on his elbows. "I had the weirdest dream...."

"Oh?"

Kenren froze, took a good long look at Tenpou's obliging expression, and groaned again, with feeling. "Not a dream, huh?"

Tenpou smiled. "I take it your last life was an interesting one?"

"You could say that," Kenren muttered, his face prickling with heat. "I ended up a bandit somehow, and believe me when I say it's not nearly as romantic as in the stories."

"No harem this time?"

Only Tenpou could sound so thoroughly sympathetic while mocking someone's pain.

"Heh...no, but there was a woman," Kenren began and stopped, looking around with a growing frown. "Wait a minute...where's Konzen?"

"Ah," Tenpou said, coughing meaningfully into his fist while his eyes danced. "About that...."

Movement out of the corner of his eye startled Kenren into sitting up fully and then scrambling crablike away as Konzen came stalking towards him. Wait-- _was_ that Konzen? The eyes were the same, though the habitual irritation had escalated into something just this side of murderous, and the long spill of golden hair tumbling down his...narrower...shoulders...? Kenren's eyes widened as he took in Konzen's slender waist and the generous curve of his hips, then traveled up to fix on curves even more enticing where there had never been any before. Konzen's lips were just as full, but they were softer now, even twisted into a snarl.

There was a familiar cat trotting at Konzen's bare feet--gods, even his _feet_ were different, delicate and pale, with ankles that should be consecrated as a site of worship--but this cat was smug and pampered-looking, much like its irascible...mistress?

_Oh dear gods_ , Kenren tried to say, but what came out was: "Nrgh."

"I don't know how," Konzen said in a sweet, husky voice that grabbed Kenren by something not precisely near but very dear to his heart, "but this is _your_ fault, you bastard."

' _How is you becoming a woman my fault_?' jockeyed for position with: ' _Oh dear gods, Konzen became a_ woman' in Kenren's head, and when he opened his mouth, even he wasn't sure which thought would emerge.

"Guh," he managed succinctly, and had the distinct pleasure of being kicked square in the chest by one of those gorgeous, perfect feet. It landed him flat on his back, but Konzen's robes were too long--damn it--for him to get a peek to see if the changes were still...complete. Even when she--he?...what the hell, _she_ \--stood over him and planted that delicious foot on his sternum to keep him where she wanted him.

And where he didn't mind being, to tell the truth, at least for the moment.

"Pay close attention," Konzen threatened, "unless you want to die _here_. What happens on earth has nothing to do with reality, understand? It's amnesia-induced temporary insanity. Believe me, if I'd remembered who you were, I'd have put a knife in your...are you listening to me?"

"Nnnh?"

Oh yeah, _now_ he remembered why Konzen was so pissed. She hadn't been just any woman--she'd been the most sought-after courtesan in Shangri-La. Perfectly rational people had been known to pay cartloads of gold for the privilege of being smacked by her fan. _Oh, gods, her_ fan, Kenren wanted to groan.

He whimpered instead in memory, devoutly.

It took a lot of money just to set up a tea-drinking date with Konzen, and Kenren...well, she'd insulted him once, back before she became so famous. He and his band of merry men had robbed one little caravan, and there she was, a pretty bartered flower on her way to her first House. Pretty, yeah, she'd been pretty then--enough that he'd claimed her as spoils instead of giving her to his men. And was she grateful? Grateful enough to knock him out on his first night alone with her, then escape camp. He'd bitched, but he figured she'd make her way back home and that would be that, at least until the next time her parents needed money.

Later, he'd found out that she'd presented herself a month later at the very brothel that had purchased her, accompanied by a score of well-armed guards and a besotted jewel merchant. He'd asked once why Konzen hadn't stayed with the jeweler, only to be told that she hadn't liked the way he sat a horse. ' _He looked like a corpse on a cow_ ,' she'd said, derisively inelegant, and he'd taken great pleasure in knowing that he cut a marvelous figure in the saddle himself...in oh, so many ways.

But that was Konzen all over, mortal or god. If she didn't like something, nothing on earth or in heaven would induce her to suffer it, even if the alternative was equally bad. If she made a bad choice, at least it was one that she chose for herself.

And as for him? Hell, he didn't know why she was so pissed--he was the one that had made an utter fool of himself for a woman that didn't even like him. He'd charged off to the city after her once he'd realized just who the new celebrity of the finest House in Shangri-La was, furious that she'd preferred a life of whoredom to being his woman. Konzen had smiled at him just like a cat when she scandalized the House by agreeing to see him--the kind of smile that looked like an invitation, if you wanted to ignore the sharp claws lurking just beneath.

' _What's so great about being stolen_?' she'd asked him bluntly, ten times prettier than the last time he'd seen her and coolly untouchable. ' _Now men steal for me._ '

He'd sworn then and there that _he_ wouldn't be one of those men, but he had been. Damn right, he had. Konzen at fifteen had been magnificent, but at sixteen she was exquisite, and at seventeen, she rivaled the gods. He'd brought all the money her grasping madam could want, but Konzen had been predictably unimpressed.

He'd brought her a kitten once instead, and the damn thing was smirking at him now, cleaning its whiskers with a coy paw.

So he'd stolen, and raided, and become so notorious he was practically a legend in his own time, and what had it gotten him? Into Konzen's bed on more than one occasion, true, but it had also gotten him killed. And had it been worth it?

_Hell, yes_.

Habit made him reach up to stroke the perfect ankle of the delightful foot that had pinned his chest for at least the hundredth time that he could recall, and it nearly got his fingers broken for the trouble. Again.

"If you even _think_ about it," Konzen snarled, "I'll rip it _off_. Remember that!"

She was gone before he could protest, stalking across the room to appropriate Kanzeon Bosatsu's throne without a lick of hesitation. Once a princess, always a princess, it seemed--even if this one was merely an ice princess. Insulted all over again--which, as a habitual state of affairs, _would_ explain why he kept chasing after Konzen--Kenren sat up and glared at the beauty who was ignoring him.

"Who is that prick saving herself for--Goku?" he muttered under his breath, blind to the absurdity of the epithet and pronoun he'd paired. They were each due to habit, though they were habits that had been formed on opposite sides of immortality.

Tenpou just smiled, bright and cheerful and utterly evil. "I dare you to suggest that where she can hear you."

"What, and now I look suicidal to you?" Kenren demanded, aghast. Teasing Konzen was one thing. Teasing Konzen about Goku--in _that_ way--was for idiots.

And where the hell was the shrimp, anyway? Sometimes she could be distracted, but anyone could see that it was worrying Konzen, one of those gnawing puzzles that ate at you until it was solved. She was worrying now, scowling at the lily pool as if she could see through it to the world beneath and the kid that had caused all this upheaval. Honestly, the fact that Goku was still missing was worrying him, too...but not like it did Konzen.

Konzen, who was as hot in bed as she was cold out of it, reason enough to make anyone a little crazy. Maybe they'd meet again in the next life and he'd get another chance to wear Konzen down. Man or woman, it made no difference to him. He couldn't help thinking that they kept meeting like this to keep the ties between them alive, and maybe that meant that some people were made for each other, meant to _be_ together in all the stupid, sappy ways he'd never given a second thought to before. It was just a matter of having enough time to see what was right in front of your face, that was all.

One thing was certain, though--he wasn't having anything more to do with cats. The damn thing was still laughing at him, as if it could hear every thought in his head and thought he was the biggest chump in existence. Then again, who knew with cats? Like Konzen, that seemed to be the expression they were born with.

***

"You were a _monk_?" Kenren cried, sounding utterly betrayed.

"Yes," Konzen replied, his eyes glittering with malice. "And I liked it so much, I think I'll do it again next time."

"Yeah, like you can pick your next life. Wait...you don't _know_ how to pick your next life, do you?"

"Idiot."

Tenpou, who'd been first to wake this time, glanced over at Kenren and trapped a sigh. The man really was impossible when he got a notion stuck in his head, and the worst of it was that until he lost interest, there might as well be nothing else in his head at all. Certainly no one else in the world existed for Kenren when he was on the hunt, and if the man weren't such a notorious womanizer, that might give a person ideas. If Kenren could only combine that charming talent for loyalty with his brazenly sensual nature, whoever he did settle on would be a very lucky person indeed.

It probably wouldn't be Konzen, for all Kenren's pushing. When a man was willing to join the ranks of the celibate just to get away from you, it was never a good sign. Not that Konzen had ever seemed all that interested in sex before--

"C'mon, Konzen...after everything we've shared!"

"Do you _want_ to die?"

\--except for that one life, and maybe that had been a fluke. Maybe Konzen had been curious what all the fuss was about and had, in true Konzen fashion, waded in simply to get it out of his system. One mortal lifetime of pure carnality, and then...back to the same old Konzen, as welcoming as a block of stone.

"Hey, I already died once for love...."

"Say that again. I dare you."

The funny thing was...Kenren wasn't the only one who'd bought Konzen's favors a lifetime ago. Tenpou had won a night with the legendary courtesan for a service he'd done his patron, but Konzen didn't seem to remember it, and Kenren had probably never known. Tenpou certainly had no intention of bringing it up himself, not when Konzen couldn't even meet his eyes this time. A wandering youkai and an itinerant priest...who would have guessed?

Both times had been sweet, without a doubt. He could definitely see what had caught Kenren's imagination. Even so...Kenren's fixation bothered him, in some way he wasn't prepared to define.

There was nothing for it, though, but to wait for Kenren's obsession to burn itself out and return things to normal. It had to happen eventually; even Kenren wouldn't beat his head against a brick wall forever, as stubborn as the man was. Lost causes didn't generally appeal to any of them...although none of them would be here in the first place if they were immune to the lure.

This time he did sigh, and the sound was echoed just behind him, a warm, velvet nose snuffling a moment later at the back of his neck. Reaching up, he patted his horse's questing muzzle and scratched under its chin. When it shook its head, its white forelock brushed Tenpou's cheek before it lifted its head, ambling around him to take a long drink from the lily pond.

He hoped Kanzeon had a decent sense of humor about these things, because her pool was starting to look a little more lived-in each time they came.

***

Being a monk was wearing on Konzen, but not as badly as it was on Kenren. The idiot had tried it--briefly--a couple of lives back, and had found it didn't agree with him. It didn't exactly agree with Konzen either, but for different reasons. What mattered was that Kenren was finally giving up, and that was worth any amount of discomfort. Kenren still flirted outrageously, but Konzen didn't take it personally. Kenren would flirt with anything. The actual _chasing_ had tapered off, become desultory, like Kenren would take it if he could get it but wouldn't put too much effort into the getting. That was fine by Konzen. He didn't intend to put any effort at all into the offering.

He still didn't know what to make of what had happened between him and Tenpou, but Tenpou was at least a gentlemen about it. So long as it didn't affect their friendship, nothing more needed to be said. Still...all these stupid, messy human entanglements. Konzen didn't know how other people stood it or why anyone thought it was worth it. Perhaps you had to lose someone to fully appreciate them, but why open yourself up to that kind of pain? He couldn't think of anything that would justify that sort of masochism, or anyone who would be worth it if he did. There was no one reliable enough to be worth the risk.

"Hey...Tenpou. Do you remember...uh...."

"Hmm?"

Except for these idiots, and it wasn't like any of them had a choice.

"Er...never mind. Probably just my imagination."

"Ah."

And now Tenpou and Kenren were not-quite-looking at each other, which put a grim smirk on Konzen's face and made him think of schoolboys, but that was neither here nor there. They could dance around each other or cozy up right now on the floor for all he cared; it didn't make a damn bit of difference compared to what was really important.

They kept dying, and they kept meeting up back here...but they kept meeting out there as well, in the world, in new lives where you weren't supposed to remember anything of the one that came before. They didn't remember either, but somehow they always found each other, always meeting for a day or a month or a decade, always coming together again and again. It wasn't right--wasn't _natural_ \--and he knew they'd all pay for it eventually. The idea that Heaven had some sort of penance in mind for them wasn't half as frightening as the idea that this might be one of Kanzeon's damn schemes, something se was planning on presenting to Heaven as a _fait accompli_ that would wash their slates clean and rub their noses in their idiocy at the same time.

He snorted to himself, thinking of the monks he'd been studying with and their stupid, idealistic fantasies of what karma was all about, and told himself that next time would be the last time, _absolutely_ the last time, he'd play the priest in any life. The solitude was nice when you could get it, but all the rest....

He'd been a god in his first life, but sometimes he thought that was in name only. He hadn't done anything worthy of the title until the day he'd tried to defend Goku against the Armies of Heaven, and he'd failed then, too. He'd even challenged Kanzeon, and se'd handed him his ass. For one single day, he'd known what it felt like to be completely alive, had almost felt what it was truly like to be a god and use the power he'd been given for something that mattered. He'd _had_ something that mattered, for all the good it did him now.

Now Heaven apparently had a use for him, and he was expected to go along with it quietly and ignore everything that had come before. No fucking chance. Living as a priest just reminded him of his life before, and now that he knew there were options--now that he'd _lived_ those options--he finally realized how much he'd hated that life. No, not just hated. He despised it, loathed it to the core of him, and every memory of it only made him more furious. He'd always done what was expected of him, and though he'd prided himself on doing it his own way, he was still living his life for others.

Not anymore. He was done with that. From now on, he was living his own life, and if that fucked up a certain person's plans for him, well, that was just fine too. That old hag had started all this by giving the stupid monkey to him in the first place. Let hir do hir own dirty work from now on. Konzen was out.

"Konzen?" Tenpou asked hesitantly, and Konzen realized that he was on his feet and pacing, hands clenched in the concealing folds of his robes. "Are you...worrying about Goku again?"

"No," he said shortly, because he wasn't, not really. He was past worrying about Goku. The other gods had _done_ something to the kid, that much was obvious, or Goku would be here now. Worrying about it wouldn't do him any good.

"Have you thought...maybe he isn't dead?"

"Hey, yeah--you saw him, Konzen," Kenren chimed in, unexpectedly helpful. "Maybe they _couldn't_ kill him. You ever think of that?"

Stopping in his tracks, Konzen turned slowly to glare at Kenren with narrowed, chilly eyes. "You actually think that's _better_?" he snapped, darkly pleased when Kenren flinched back in surprise. "You've _been_ a god, you fool. Surely you have some idea of what you can do to a person who can't die from it." Not that he actually thought any of that had happened to Goku, but...how much of his doubt was because he wouldn't let himself believe in the possibility?

"Konzen," Tenpou tried again, his voice thick with sympathy. "I'm sure Goku is fine."

Konzen snorted, tired of listening. "Whatever. It doesn't matter to me." He couldn't let it. How much worse, after all, was living your life for someone who was already dead?

"Liar," Kenren accused, and Konzen whipped back around to sneer at him, seething.

"What the fuck would you know? You spent centuries chasing after me because you _thought_ I cared about you. You were wrong then, and you're wrong _now_." Kenren had gone pale, his expression a mixture of shock, fury and shame, but Konzen wasn't done yet. "You two have been hounding me since Heaven, and now you're hounding me as mortals. You want to know why we keep meeting in every life? Because we _wish_ it. We come here and we think about what we did and we decide what we want to do next, and something lets us have our way. Karma or Kanzeon or the nine million little gods--it doesn't matter who. We always get our wish.

"Well, I'm not wishing for this anymore. I don't need you, understand? I don't need any of you!" he snarled, holding their wide eyes for a moment before turning and stalking away, wanting to get as far from them as possible until he was freed of their company for good. Maybe he'd spend this life as a hermit on a mountaintop, seeing no one at all for decades. Anywhere would be fine, so long as it was far away from them, with their fucking expectations and assumptions and damned lying _promises_ \--showing up time after time as if anyone, _anyone_ , could guarantee something like that. They were never going to be free of each other if he didn't break them apart now, and he couldn't stand the idea of being tied forever to another fucking lie.

When he felt the light touch on his arm, he tried to shake it off angrily, but the other man was deceptively strong. "Konzen," Tenpou said, his voice so gentle it was like a punch in the gut. "You don't really want to find out if that's true or not, do you? And besides...we need _you_. Isn't that enough?"

It was so absurd and so painful, he had to laugh in spite of himself. "How the fuck could it be enough?" he asked the floor, not wanting to see Tenpou's expression. "Can't you tell se's plotting something? I'm sick of being a pawn...and I don't want to go back," he said, taking a deep, shuddering breath as he realized the truth of it. "I don't want to go _back_." Backwards, back in time, to a Konzen who was bored past bearing and denied the escape of death, as much a doll as Nataku had been. And Kanzeon was merciful, oh yes--se'd given him the monkey, shown him what escape looked like...and then stood by and did nothing while it was snatched away.

"So don't," Tenpou said, and the simple confidence in his voice made Konzen look up, turning his head to meet Tenpou's level gaze. Tenpou didn't look the slightest bit cowed by Konzen's ranting, and some part of him wanted honestly to hold on to that promise--not the false hope that nothing would change, but the solid bedrock of Tenpou _choosing_ to remain by him despite every change, no matter what. "All this time we've been moving forward. If one of us fell down, don't you think the others would drag him up again?"

Not help him up. Not wait for him. _Drag_ him up, and kick him in the ass until he was moving properly once more.

"Would you?" Konzen asked reluctantly, holding Tenpou's eyes. If he was going to risk his soul and his sanity in one of Kanzeon Bosatsu's lunatic plots, he needed to be certain.

Tenpou smiled, as sweetly as a lover and as utterly evil as only Tenpou could be. "By the hair if necessary. With pleasure."

Konzen snorted and shook his head, a strained smile dragged out of him against his will. That was Tenpou, of course. But there was someone else in this equation as well, and he had to steel himself to meet Kenren's eyes, not surprised in the slightest to find them blank and reserved for the first time in memory. He couldn't even imagine what to say after what he'd said earlier, wasn't certain how much of _that_ had been the truth and how much simple irritation left to fester too long. He wasn't used to giving vent to his feelings, wasn't used to acknowledging them at all if he could help it. He had no idea what to do with Kenren in the first place.

But perhaps he hadn't given the man enough credit. What Tenpou insisted was loyalty Konzen had always taken for obstinacy--until Kenren's face thawed reluctantly, almost helplessly, the mask giving way to an exasperated smile. "Fuck, blondie. You're more trouble than you're worth, you know that?" Kenren grumbled, but came over anyway to clap a hand on each of their shoulders, sealing the circle they made. Something pushed its cold nose into Konzen's free hand, and he looked down to find Tenpou's dog panting up at him, its pink tongue washing his palm in a mute show of solidarity.

"And I can't _wait_ to find out if you're who I think you are," Konzen growled at the dog.

"Huh?"

Glancing up at the puzzled looks of his two companions, Konzen rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. How many red-eyed white animals are there in the world?"

While the others were staring at the dog in fresh horror, Konzen shook himself free of them and dropped gracefully to his knees to take the dog's head in his hands. "You poor thing," he crooned deliberately as the dog laughed up at him, tongue lolling out. "You should just stick with me from now on. Those two apparently don't think with anything but their dicks."

"I don't know which is weirder," Kenren muttered not-quite to himself. "The fact that _Tenpou_ didn't catch on, or hearing the Blessed Konzen Douji-sama say 'dick'."

"Bite me," Konzen offered sweetly, and gave him the finger for good measure.

"Say it like you mean it, and I will," Kenren shot back snidely, but this time Konzen could tell that he didn't mean anything by it. Which was a good thing. He might trust them--he might even care for them in his own way--but they kept trying to mix love into things, and that was the one thing he wouldn't do. If they wanted to trouble each other with it, that was fine. Just so long as they left him out of it.

The only thing he didn't hate about being a priest was the idea of nonattachment. He'd thought he'd lived by it all his lives, but at the same time, it felt like he hadn't learned the first thing. It might be too late for him, but it was still an idea he wanted to explore.

Maybe somewhere down the road, it'd even do him some good.

***

Tenpou was the first one to wake, and for the first time since the first time, he wasn't certain of his own name. Being able to see clearly out of both his eyes seemed strange, the colors too vivid, a new appreciation of depth making details leap out at him with startling clarity. He sat up cautiously, not quite sure where he was, expecting to be...somewhere else. The Palace of the Setting Sun, standing with Sanzo as he presented the five sutras to the Three Aspects in triumph, or Houtou Castle, fighting for his life against the nearly-completed monstrosity that was Gyumaoh imperfectly resurrected, or maybe sleeping behind the wheel in some forest, waiting for dawn to give them enough light to travel by.

 _Hakkai_ , he thought in some confusion. _Am I Hakkai still or Tenpou? Or are they the same?_

When he doubted his purpose or direction, it was ingrained habit to turn first to Sanzo, but since it was his identity that troubled him now, he found himself searching instinctively for another face.

It was Gojyo--no, Kenren--sleeping next to him, the familiar curtain of red hair a guilty comfort. Not completely Kenren, then, but instead...what?

_We're losing our old selves_ , he thought with a shiver of disquiet, but that didn't quite ring true to him. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch the sleeping form just inches from his own, but uncertainty of the consequences made him hesitate. They'd never disturbed each other's sleep before, trusting that they'd all wake up within minutes of each other, bound by a superstitious, unspoken dread that rousing a sleeper would cut short that person's life. He couldn't bear to wake Gojyo-- _Kenren, damn it_ \--now, just because he was confused.

_But I'm not really confused, am I? I'm just_ \--

Gojyo stirred, scrunching his face up the way he always did when the morning sun hit him through the window, and then he opened eyes of the loveliest red Hakkai had ever seen. Opened them slowly, in fact, peering up at Hakkai with a lazy half-smile as if waking up to him was the most natural thing in the world.

"Nnn," he said by way of greeting, lifting a hand to brush the dark hair away from Hakkai's right eye. "I know you won't agree with me, Tenpou," Kenren said sleepily, "but the monocle was kinda hot."

"Kenren," Tenpou said with a helpless laugh, shaking his head. "You never were all that tightly-wrapped, were you?"

"Aw, c'mon. It made you look so serious. And then you'd give me that _look_ , like Hakkai-sensei wanted to spank me."

"Idiot," Tenpou said to cover his relief, not really caring so much who he was or had been so long as they together had _this_. But the borrowed endearment made him think of Sanzo, and he looked around just in time to see Konzen pick himself up off the floor and--draw his gun. Oh, dear.

"I have put up with a _lot_ from you," Konzen said in a low, edged voice, speaking to no one that Tenpou could see. "I jumped through your hoops and got back the damned sutras and saved the fucking world. For _years_ I played your game, and now I want what's mine. _Damn it, you old hag, you bring me the fucking monkey, or I'm going to take this place apart_!"

"Holy shit, Sanzo's lost it," Kenren breathed, and that was all Gojyo, like the fury in Konzen's stance was all Sanzo.

Only it wasn't, really. That was what had puzzled him when he woke, why he hadn't been quite certain who he was. It wasn't that they'd lost themselves; it was that they'd become more truly what they had always been meant to be. Konzen had always had this fire within him; it was just that there had never been any catalyst to bring it out.

" _Really_ , nephew," a mocking voice said as the air around the throne darkened and took shape. "Apparently the one thing you're never going to learn is patience."

Moments later they were in the presence of Kanzeon Bosatsu, who lounged before them resplendent in transparent veils and delicately-patterned silks, the gold bangles at hir wrists and ankles chiming sweetly. Se looked the same as ever, the voluptuous curves of a woman paired with the lean strength of a boy, hir smile as enigmatic as the rest of hir. Smoothing dark curls away from hir face, se gave Konzen a provocative look, daring him to refute the accusation or perhaps daring him to shoot. It was impossible to tell with Kanzeon.

"The kind of patience dealing with you requires is beyond even the gods," Konzen spat, his eyes livid with resentment.

Kanzeon yawned extravagantly and then grinned, crossing hir legs with a primness that fooled no one. "It's interesting you should say that, considering that you're due to become gods again. All of you. For services done above and beyond the call of duty, at great risk of personal harm, blah, blah, blah. Congratulations!"

Tenpou winced when he heard Konzen thumb the safety off his gun, but he wouldn't dream of stopping the man. Some things were more important than godhood.

"Goku," Konzen said succinctly, and lifted his arm to aim right between the Goddess of Mercy's eyes.

Tenpou expected fireworks, but Kanzeon's smile was unexpectedly fond as se regarded hir nephew, even satisfied. "Who said he's dead?"

Konzen blinked at that, startlement robbing him momentarily of his fury, and then something made him jerk, half-turning as if Kanzeon had faded completely from his thoughts.

When Tenpou heard the sound of running footsteps, he forgot the goddess as well.

"Sannnnn-zoooooo," they heard in a familiar voice, coming closer as their eyes found a door that had never been there before. They expected to see Goku charge through it, but it was Hakuryuu that glided through the open doorway first, piping his joy to the heavens. Goku bolted in after, no longer their _little_ monkey but almost a man in his own right, whose face lit up with blinding relief when he met Konzen's tense stare. "Finally! It took us _ages_ to get here, and we're starving! Is everybody okay?"

"Well?" Kanzeon demanded, giving them all a challenging grin. " _Is_ everybody okay?"

"Yes," Tenpou said slowly as Kenren slung an arm around his shoulders, and Hakuryuu--who must certainly have forgiven them for getting him killed so many times--landed on Kenren's arm and licked Tenpou's ear. Konzen looked too shocked to smile when Goku hit him running and twined around him like an affectionate vine, but there was a good possibility that there was a smile in there somewhere, underneath all the prickly temper and no-longer-banked rage. "Yes, I think we're quite okay. Thank you."

"De nada," se said breezily, which meant nothing to him, but the feeling of home the four of them--no, five--created between them said more than any words could.


	2. Crack Comment Fic Coda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And everybody thought they were being punished....

Followed by the sound of gunshots, the Jade Emperor flung himself through the door of Kanzeon's private sanctum, tripped over the hem of his robe, and scrabbled inelegantly to hide behind hir throne. There was a moment of silence broken only by the sound of Kanzeon filing hir nails and the strangled, scandalized cough of Jiro Shin.

"Kanzeon!" the Emperor hissed, peering warily at the open doorway. "Your nephew--I thought he and those other miscreants were being punished!"

"Hmm?" Kanzeon glanced up from hir nails. "Oh, that. That wasn't a punishment."

"It _wasn't_?"

"Nope. I just put him in therapy."


End file.
